Apparently we've been around for quite a while with ties to the evil
tobacco industry going back to the 1980s.

Sounds like a tinfoil hat with a built in Cuckoo Clock!

In an ironic way the Progs are right, though way off the mark in
estimating the depth of the roots.

There has long been a Tea Party brewing under the surface of American
life ever since the slow, piecemeal betrayal of the Revolution began;
before the ink dried on the Declaration of Independence. The current
manifestation of anti-government sentiment rose to prominence because
the establishment republicans in the Bush-Cheney years so ruined the
GOP brand and then President Obama and the democrats pushed a hard line
progressive agenda that woke a lot of people up to the fact that we are
fast running out of freedoms to give up

The Freedom Movement of today goes back to the FDR Era. Conservative
democrats and republicans who opposed the New Deal on grounds of
unconstitutionality and its gross governmental intrusion into private
life. It was a lot like today with the "go along, get along" Chamber of
Commerce republicans who just wanted to keep their place at the table
and continue slopping at the public trough. They have predominated
their party thru much of the modern era, punctuated by the unsuccessful
attempt by Barry Goldwater to sell the more libertarian brand of
conservatism and later Reagan who's speeches helped bring the idea of
small government back to the forefront of public consciousness and cast
a stumbling block to slow the progressive juggernaut; at least for a
little while.

Then again, it's becoming more apparent that the wave of economic
prosperity attributed to Reaganomics, just masked the pain of the
continued creep of government into our private lives and there were
still enough areas of personal freedom left unassailed to make the
process seem less alarming. Even through the worst deeds of Clinton and
both Bush Administrations.

As for the claim of the Tea Party being in bed with Big Tobacco: that's
just the latest attempt by the Progs to paint us as a monstrous
corporate astroturfing plot. If anyone is in bed with the tobacco
industry it's Big Government. Considering that they are giving tax
breaks and subsidies while at the same time waging war on tobacco makes
the whole thing look like a domestic abuse case alternating between
sweet tender lovemaking and battery!

That's your tax dollars at work.

Let's face it—the Progs will always go out on a limb to make
anything or anyone they don't like into a pariah! And it's quite
obvious the same people who want to ban smoking, along with oversized
soft drinks, SUVs, guns or anything else declared illegal, immoral or
fattening—would want to make the Tea Parties and others desiring
limitations on the power and scope of government—as marginalized and
despised if not more so than smokers who've been taxed, and regulated,
defamed, hounded and exiled to the fringes of society. So much for the
"progressive-liberal" champions of diversity and tolerance.

This latest guilt by association ploy is actually a golden opportunity
for the Tea Partiers and other like-minded people to rise to the
occasion and distinguish themselves as defenders of everyone's freedom
to pursue happiness in their own way. While we're at it; there are lots
of ways for all of us to have fun thumbing our noses at authority too.
Take a few puffs for the tobacco nazis and wash it down with a Big Gulp
Drink for Mayor Bloomberg! Or do a little time on a shooting range in
honor of Governor "You don't need 10 bullets to kill a deer" Cuomo.
Then tell the anti-smokers and fellow travelers who uphold other forms
of prohibition to go blow smoke up their posteriors and get a life!